Kellyanne Conway admits Trump team failed in 2020, writes of marriage troubles in new book
WASHINGTON — Kellyanne Conway, a close confidant of former President Donald Trump, toes the line between honest criticism and loyalism to Trump in her new memoir, "Here's the Deal."
In the book, released Tuesday, she describes the former president and her husband, George, as the "two men in her life," always at odds. More often than not, she found the president defending her more frequently than her husband, she said.
Conway additionally questions the effectiveness of the former administration's pandemic policies, particularly Trump's own lax mask use, and criticizes members of the administration for power-grabbing, blaming it in part for Trump's loss in 2020 and what came after. In particular, she takes pointed aim at Jared Kushner, husband of the president's daughter, Ivanka Trump.
But she also places blame for most of Trump's blunders on everyone but the former president himself.
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Trump lost presidency, Conway says
Conway acknowledges that former President Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election and suggests that incompetent or ladder-climbing aides failed to tell that to him straight.
"By not confronting their candidate with the grim reality of his situation, that the proof had not surfaced to support the claims, they denied him the evidence he sought and the respect he was due," Conway said. "Instead, supplicant after sycophant after showman genuflected in front of the Resolute Desk and promised the president goods they could not deliver."
Conway additionally admitted that Trump's team failed to win the presidential race and later lent "full-throated encouragement" when Trump repeatedly insisted he won — but only in private.
"The team failed on November 3, and they failed again afterward," she said.
The Conways' marriage
Conway felt her husband, George, continually conspired against her and the president: "George would be just steps away from me, tucked away in his home office, plotting against my boss and me," Conway wrote.
She said that at one point, Trump's elder daughter, Ivanka, gave her a note listing the "names of two local doctors who specialized in couples' therapy." After she shared the names with George, he "rejected one and said a half-hearted 'okay' to the other while looking at his phone," adding that they "never went."
A lawyer and conservative political activist, George Conway supported Trump as a candidate in 2016 though he had reservations about the billionaire businessman.
But in July 2019, he called Trump a racist after the president told a group of Democratic congresswomen who are minorities to "go back" from where they came.
George Conway said Trump's comments about Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were "racist to the core."
In an interview with Fox News in July 2019, Kellyanne Conway disagreed with her husband's views that the former president was racist.
"I work with this president, I know him," she said. "I know his heart, I know his actions, I know how much he has helped people of color. And I go by what people do, not what other people say about them."
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That wasn't his only criticism of Trump. Kellyanne Conway also notes in her book that George called her boss a "madman." Describing the "two men in (her) life," she said she was disappointed that her husband wasn't more supportive.
"One of those men was defending me. And it wasn't George Conway. It was Donald Trump," she recounts in her book.
In December 2019, George Conway joined a group of conservative critics of Trump to launch the Lincoln Project, a political action committee aimed at stopping his reelection.
Conway on Jared Kushner
The book also discusses her disapproval of Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner. Conway called Kushner a "shrewd and calculating" individual and a "man of knowing nods, quizzical looks and sidebar inquiries."
She also suggested the president's son-in-law frequently overreached on the power he held, writing that “he misread the Constitution in one crucial respect, thinking that all power not given to the federal government was reserved to him.”
"No matter how disastrous a personnel change or legislative attempt may be, (Kushner) was highly unlikely to be held accountable for it," Conway wrote.
Other topics mentioned in the book are her childhood and how she grew up in a female household without support from her father. Conway also discusses motherhood and family — being a working mom while working at the White House.
She ends the book by stating that "democracy will survive. America will survive," but she and George "may not survive."
Contributing: William Cummings
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kellyanne Conway book admits Trump's 2020 loss, shares marriage issues
